Ho, saki, haste, the beaker bring,
Fill up, and pass it round the ring;
Love seemed at first an easy thing-
But ah! the hard awakening.

So sweet perfume the morning air
Did lately from her tresses bear,
Her twisted, musk-diffusing hair-
What heart's calamity was there!

Within life's caravanserai
What brief security have I,
When momently the bell doth cry,
"Bind on your loads; the hour is nigh I"
Let wine upon the prayer-mat flow,
An if the taverner bids so;
Whose wont is on this road to go
Its ways and manners well doth know.
Mark now the mad career of me,
From wilfulness to infamy;
Yet how conceal that mystery
Whereof men make festivity?

A mountain sea, moon clouded o'er,
And nigh the whirlpool's awful roar-
How can they know our labour sore
Who pass light-burthened on the shore?
Hafiz, if thou wouldst win her grace,
Be never absent from thy place;
When thou dost see the well-loved face
Be lost at last to time and space.
Translator:
Arberry, A. J. (1947). Hafiz: Fifty poems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.